The making of the Beckenbauer monument: Artist Matilde Romagnoli's insights

Franz Beckenbauer died at the start of this year. The shining light. 'Der Kaiser'. In his honour, the Kurt Landauer Foundation has commissioned a bronze monument. How is the artist getting on? What are her thoughts as she works? Our members' magazine ‘51’ visited Matilde Romagnoli in her workshop.

"Let's have a look, then we'll see." Matilde Romagnoli shakes her head with amusement as she recounts the new expressions she has learnt in Munich. The Italian has been living in the Bavarian capital for 10 years, so it's inevitable that she will come into contact with some of Franz Beckenbauer's wisdom. But now Der Kaiser has taken on a completely different dimension for her. He stands almost three metres tall next to her. The larger-than-life-sized clay model is not yet finished, it's not yet recognisable that it's Beckenbauer, but Romagnoli has long seen him in front of her. "The more I get to know him, the more he fascinates me,’ she says and laughs. "I think it was easy to fall in love with him."

Romagnoli is standing in the workshop of the Munich art foundry, in a backyard in Schleißheimer Straße in the centre of the city. The walls are black-grey from soot and dust, the shelves, workbenches and floor are piled high with figures, busts, moulds and tools. It's one big creative mess. The foundry has been around since 1905, so it's almost as old as FC Bayern. It is a place of tradition. A place where time stands pleasantly still.

Love for bronze casting discovered in Munich

Right now it smells of wet clay. The clay model that will one day become a bronze monument to Der Kaiser is standing in the centre of the hall. Romagnoli climbs a ladder and slaps a lump of the dark mass onto Beckenbauer's neck. She uses a tool to scrape some of it off again and moulds the soft material with her hands. The artist is in the middle of the modelling process, working on Beckenbauer's muscles. She has previously welded together a metal skeleton, encased it in hard foam and construction foam and placed the so-called ‘landmarks’ to give the figure a rough shape. Then everything was wrapped with wire mesh, and now the clay is applied.

"I like the whole creative process with its complexity and contrasts," Romagnoli says. "The material is sometimes soft, sometimes hard, sometimes cold, sometimes hot." The 31-year-old discovered her love of bronze casting in Munich. "When I experienced casting for the first time, I immediately understood everything," she explains. "A bronze statue is like a volcano, only the other way round. It doesn't spit out the lava but absorbs it into its interior. And you can feel this energy, even when the bronze has cooled." The energy of Der Kaiser.

Romagnoli: Commission 'a great honour'

Beckenbauer, or to be precise the Kurt Landauer Foundation, came into Romagnoli's life in early July. Would she like to make the bronze monument for the Bayern legend? "I immediately said yes," recalls the artist. "It's wonderful that I get to do this, a great honour – and a challenge. But I like challenges," she adds, brushing a long strand of hair out of her face. Her hands are dirty from the clay.

For the Kurt Landauer Foundation, it's not the first bronze monument. In 2019, the charity immortalised legendary FCB president Kurt Landauer at the club headquarters on Säbener Straße. Gerd Müller followed outside the Allianz Arena in 2023, which is exactly where the Beckenbauer memorial is to be situated in autumn 2025. Standing on a plinth, the monument will be around four metres high. "Beckenbauer was a Bavarian all his life. He represented our club and carried it out into the world," says Georg Mooshofer, explaining why the foundation launched the next memorial project after Beckenbauer's death at the beginning of the year. "FC Bayern was his life,’ adds Christian Kröll, "he made many of the right decisions for the club, as a player, as a coach and as president." FC Bayern appreciates the fans' initiative. "We are delighted that our fans from the Kurt Landauer Foundation are also erecting a memorial for Franz Beckenbauer to ensure that his memory remains visible and tangible – and alive forever," says Michael Diederich, deputy CEO of the club.

A concrete idea

The fact the sculptor comes from Italy, where Beckenbauer became the "shining light" of German football with the World Cup title in 1990, is a nice sidenote. As is the fact that the monument is being made by a female artist. Women always played a special role in Beckenbauer's life, starting with his mother. "We searched but couldn't find a woman who had ever made a statue of a footballer," says Kröll. "Matilde is the first."

The Milanese immediately understood what the Kurt Landauer Foundation had in mind. A figure that expresses what Der Kaiser was: superior playmaker, conductor, maestro. The foundation had a very specific idea: Beckenbauer standing with his foot on the ball and keeping an eye on everything. "The pose reflects his vision and reading of the game," describes Kröll. "You can see how he's already three steps ahead in his head." Romagnoli liked that immediately. The figure has a tension, she says: "He stops the ball and thinks about where he should play it next. It's a brief moment of pause. You can feel something is about to happen."

Statue financed by donations

As soon as the clay model is ready, the foundry will take over the next steps. The model has to be divided into several parts because it is too large to be cast in one piece. A silicone mould is made of each individual piece, followed by a wax mould to which sprues are attached. Finally, a casting mould is made from heat-resistant fireclay, the wax in the mould is melted out and the liquid bronze flows into the resulting cavity. It's a process that is thousands of years old.

As previously with Kurt Landauer and Gerd Müller, the foundation wants to finance the memorial solely through donations. FC Bayern has offered financial help, for which they are grateful, but they will not accept any money from the club, emphasise the foundation's representatives. "The memorial gives us fans the opportunity to be an active part of Bayern Munich. It's like standing in the stadium, singing along and doing a tifo," says Kröll. You also hear this time and again from the donors. "That they want to stand in front of the memorial with their children at some point and be able to say: Look, we took part in that." This is our Kaiser.

© Images: Constantin Mirbach